


Prayer for the Living

by ama



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Canon Jewish Character, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Judaism, M/M, Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-11-17 19:39:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18105113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ama/pseuds/ama
Summary: Instead of going to the VFW, Klaus visits a nearby synagogue to mourn Dave.





	Prayer for the Living

**Author's Note:**

> me: making Dave Jewish would probably feel a little forced to people, so maybe this should be the ONE fandom where I don't write heavy-handed Jewish themed fics  
> the actual actor who played Dave: fun fact, Dave is Jewish. it's on his dog tags.  
> me: TIME TO WRITE HEAVY-HANDED JEWISH ANGST

“Drop me off here.”

Diego pulled the car over and Klaus stumbled out.

“Hey, maybe leave the booze here,” he called through the open door. Klaus looked up at the sign posted on Congregation Tikvah Israel and down at the bottle in his hand, and then shrugged and tossed it in the backseat. “You sure you okay, man?” Diego said, leaning over. Klaus ignored him.

The synagogue was a small building, paneled in dark wood, and inside, sounds seemed muffled. There was a preschool off to one side; Klaus saw full cubbies and heard the chatter of young children who were actual allowed to have unscheduled play time in the course of their daily routine. He shuffled further into the building, heading past a glass-paneled office towards the sanctuary. A middle-aged woman seated at the desk stood and opened the door.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“No thanks.”

The sanctuary was large, larger than he would have guessed from the outside. Cushioned chairs were arranged in curved rows, facing the platform, the reader’s podium, and the cabinet where gauzy curtains covered three large scrolls. Two seven-branched menorahs stood on either side of the ark, and one hanging lamp—all fitted with electric bulbs. One of them flickered on and off and made his eye twitch.

Klaus sat down heavily in the seat nearest the door. His gaze fell to the back of the chair in front of him, which had a wooden compartment for two books. One was larger than the other—a bible, probably. The other was a prayer book, and that was what he had come for, but he couldn’t force his arm to reach out and take it. It looked so heavy, and he was so tired.

It was peaceful, in this room. The muffled noises from the antechamber had been cut off by the close of the door, leaving only soft silence. The room was wide but the ceilings low, at least compared to the churches he’d been in, and he found that comforting. He closed his eyes and felt his head tip back. Except for the lamps on the platform, the electric lights were off, but there were large windows on the podium and the far side of the building, and natural light poured into the room. Even with his eyes closed, the room was not dark.

“Excuse me,” a kind voice said. “Can I help you?”

Klaus let his head fall to the side and opened his eyes. Before him stood a short man in maybe his early 40s, with a short beard and wire-frame glasses. He was wearing dark wash jeans and a green henley—not at _all_ clerical clothes, in Klaus’s opinion—and a knit yarmulke.

“Probably not,” Klaus said seriously.

“Well, maybe I can try. My name is Aaron; I’m the rabbi here. What brought you to Tikvah Israel?”

Klaus looked back up at the platform. His eyes fixed on the menorah with the one bad light bulb.

“I lost someone,” he said. The words came slow and stupid. “I’m not Jewish, but… he was. And now—I don’t know what to do.”

“Baruch dayan ha-emet,” the rabbi murmured. He stepped over the threshold and sat down in the chair next to Klaus. “I’m very sorry to hear that. What’s your name?”

“Klaus.”

“Can you tell me a little more about your friend, Klaus?”

If he spoke, he was going to cry. Klaus shook his head, and Aaron touched him on the shoulder.

“What do I do?” Klaus said in a ragged whisper. “God, what do I _do_?”

“If there are funeral preparations to be made, maybe I can—” the rabbi offered, but Klaus shook his head. “Or perhaps there’s a shiva you can attend? When someone has died, the family goes into a period of mourning for seven days. It can be a great comfort to them to have other friends of the deceased visit.”

“No, nothing—” His voice cracked, a quiet pathetic sound like the tread of a boot on glass. “Nothing like that.”

“Then you live.” The words hung in the air. “I don’t know if your friend told you much about Jewish tradition, but there is a prayer we say for the dead. It’s called the Kaddish. And the strange thing about the Kaddish is that it doesn’t actually mention death at all. It’s just a normal prayer. Part of the daily service, as a matter of fact, and traditionally it can only be said in a quorum of ten adult Jews. It’s a prayer for the dead, but it’s also a prayer for transition, and a prayer for the living. Mourners say it every single day, until their time of mourning is over. Every day, you surround yourself with your community, and you take a few moments to think of the one you lost, while saying the same ordinary words of praise you say all the time. Because that’s all we can do for the dead. We remember them, and we go on living our lives.”

 _That’s not enough_ , Klaus wanted to say. _They’re not satisfied with that. They want more, always more, they’re starving and desperate and frightened._ But he wanted to accept it, too. He wanted it to be that easy.

“Can I say this prayer?” he asked. “The—what—Kaddish?”

“Well, it’s… as I mentioned, it usually requires a quorum, and only Jewish adults count, so to speak, but—but yes, of course you can. It’s a mitzvah, a commandment, to comfort mourners, and if Tikvah Israel can bring you comfort, you are more than welcome to join us for worship. If you’ll give me a moment, we just had a text study class here, and I think I can gather a minyan.”

“Thank you,” Klaus whispered, and at the sound of retreating footsteps, he buried his head in his hands. He reached for the torn patch in his pocket and held it to his lips.

He was alone for only a moment before a hand rested on his shoulder again. He turned his head slightly and saw Diego out of the corner of his eye.

“Go away, please.”

“Not until you talk to me.”

“Is that a threat? You threatening me?”

“What are you doing here, man?”

“I’m a Mourner,” he said. “I’m mourning.”

There was a pill in his pocket, too, and that would be nice, since he had left his booze in Diego’s car, but before he could decide whether that was a good idea or not, Aaron popped his head back into the room.

“Klaus, we’re ready—oh, hello. I’m Rabbi Aaron.”

“Diego. Klaus’s brother,” he said suspiciously.

“I take it you’re also not Jewish, then?” At Diego’s affirmative, he continued, “Then Klaus, would you mind coming into the classroom? I only had seven students in my text study, so to make a minyan I needed to recruit our preschool teacher, and she needs to keep an eye on the kids while we pray. Diego, you are welcome to join us.”

“Fine.” Klaus stood and picked up a prayer book, and paused. “Can you fix that light?” he asked, gesturing vaguely at the flickering bulb. “It’s annoying the shit out of me.”

“I know, I’ve been meaning to take care of that. I’ll have to go hunting for a new bulb.”

Klaus followed Aaron out of the sanctuary, Diego following him like a wary guard dog. They entered the classroom; a handful of children were sitting on the mat, watching a TV screen where puppets were talking about the Hebrew alphabet. Clustered around the whiteboard were the assembled adults—the preschool teacher, the office employee who had raised the alarm about a strange drunk man wandering into the synagogue, and a bunch of what appeared to be retirees. They nodded at him and gave him pitying looks, but none of them tried to talk to him, for which Klaus was grateful.

“Page thirty, Klaus,” Aaron said. “It’s read in Aramaic, and Ira and I will read it along with you—Ira is still in the year of mourning for his wife. If you have trouble with the words, though, that’s fine. You can just say _amen_. In Judaism, saying amen gives you credit for saying the whole prayer.”

Klaus nodded and flipped through the book. The prayer was written in the book three times, once in the Hebrew alphabet, once in translation, and once in the original language but the English letters. He stepped further into the room to join the loose circle of people, and he cleared his throat. Aaron began.

“Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mei raba b’alma di-v’ra chirutei…”

The other people in the room all seemed to have the prayer memorized. At some points they all chimed in, responding to some cue Klaus didn’t know; other times it was just Aaron, and an old man who stooped, and Klaus stumbling over the words, worse and worse the longer the prayer went on, because now he was back in Vietnam with Dave, drunk and naked and lying with his head by the footboard, and Dave was trying to teach him Hebrew.

_“Melech ha-olam.”_

_“Melechhh ha-olam.”_

_“Shehecheyanu.”_

_“Shhhhcanyu.”_

_“She-heh-chey-anu,” he repeated, laughing._

_“Shceckakanyu.”_

_“Hopeless,” Dave said, and he flopped on the bedspread. “Absolutely hopeless.”_

_“What does it mean, anyway?” Klaus pouted, twisting his fingers in the chain of Dave’s dog tags._

_“It means blessed are you Lord our God, ruler of the universe, who has kept us alive, and sustained us, and allowed us to reach this moment,” Dave recited, and though his voice was casual, his eyes weren’t. They were trailing over Klaus’s body, drinking him in, consuming him. Klaus shivered, and Dave cupped his cheek and leaned in for a kiss. “It’s what you say,” he breathed, lips brushing against Klaus’s, “the first time something… wonderful happens. Something new and—joyful, and—”_

_He pressed his lips to Klaus’s again, harder this time, and Klaus clutched at the back of his head and they rolled on top of each other for a moment and almost fell off the bed. Klaus recovered with a yelp and a breathless laugh, clinging to Dave’s arms._

_“Ay-men,” he said lasciviously, and Dave laughed and brushed his fingers through Klaus’s hair._

“Amen,” he whispered as the somber words of the prayer concluded. There was a heartbeat of silence, and that was enough. The prayer book slipped from his numb hands. The woman next to him picked it up and kissed the spine, and Klaus wrapped his arms around himself and heaved a dry, racking sob.

The circle tightened around him. Diego’s hand was on the back of his neck, and others were touching him, too, his elbow, his shoulder, and their voices overlapped as they all spoke at once. For one wild moment, he was reminded of the crypt, the screaming, the insubstantial hands grasping at him, the mob crowding him against the cold wall.

But these hands were warm and solid, and he didn’t mind their touch. The voices were different, too—they were low and gentle, and when he could focus on the words he found they were offering words of empathy and comfort. Even, impossibly, the promise of something better.

_When my Rose passed, I couldn’t sleep for a week—but you know, just yesterday I thought of her favorite joke and I laughed out loud. Why don’t you come over to my house and I’ll cook you something so you don’t have to worry about dinner? I’m here every Shabbos, you come sit next to me and we’ll pray together. His memory will be a blessing for you._

_This is what the living do,_ he thought. His mind was dazed, but the words came with perfect clarity.  _The dead die, and the living—live._


End file.
